One of the biggest adjustments I had to make to my own teaching when I arrived at Shandong University of Finance and Economics last year was teaching groups of 40-50 students. Teaching at universities and language schools in Canada, Latin America and Europe, I had never had more than 25 students at a time. I believed that a student-centered, communicative approach to language teaching was only possible with smaller groups, ideally 10-15 (or even fewer!)

Well, that wasn’t possible in this particular context.

I know that lots of teachers worldwide successfully teach classes of 30-50+ (or even up to 200!) on a daily basis. Out of curiosity, I’ve attended sessions at the IATEFL conference over the years on teaching in low-resource contexts, or for large, multilevel classes. There are lots of resources out there both for teaching large classes in higher ed setting in general, as well as applying task-based learning and other approaches in the ELT context, and handling correction of written work for large groups.

After experimenting with different techniques for the past year, I have found the following to be helpful. (Some of these points might be beyond obvious to some of you, but they were new to me!)

• Alternating between working with the whole group in plenary, individual tasks, pairwork, and small to medium groups is essential, for engagement as well as communicative skills development.
• A classroom space that facilitates pair and small-group work makes a big difference. I have been lucky enough to carry out most of my teaching at SDUFE in “smart” classrooms with wheeled chairs and tables, set up either in 6 groups of 8 students, or 8 groups of 6 students. Each group has its own screen where what’s being projected on the board at the front of the classroom is repeated. (I’ve seen some versions where these small-group screen are even interactive, and students can move through the teacher’s presentation independently.) This makes it easy for students to work in pairs, or with groups of 3-4 or 6-8, depending on the circumstances.
  When I’ve worked with the same groups of students in lecture halls with fixed chairs and desks in traditional or stadium-style rows, there was a much lower level of engagement.
• A classroom space that facilitates monitoring is also an advantage. It is more difficult to monitor groups and interact with students when the teacher is meant to be at a fixed podium or a raised platform at the front of the room. A presentation pointer makes it easier to advance your slides from anywhere in the classroom.
• TBLT and PBL are great for large groups! I find task-based learning and project-based learning very engaging as they allow for pair or small group work, provide opportunities for interaction and communication even in a large class.
• Interactive tech tools like Mentimeter or Kahoot, or collaborative documents like Google Docs or Tencent docs, can allow broad participation, no matter the group size.
• Dealing with assignments and evaluation with large groups can be tricky. Learning management platforms such as Superstar (the one I use here in China), or D2L/Brightspace, Moodle, etc. are essential to manage submissions and feedback without carrying around gigantic piles of paper.
  Assignments completed in pairs and small groups can decrease the amount of correction to be done. Carefully designed, process-based assignments which can be marked Pass/Fail can work well, as opposed to product-based assignments only which require detailed feedback. Good rubrics, and use of self- and peer assessment can also make correction less onerous.

What do you do with your large classes?